(by David Megginson)

Since some verbals -- in particular, the gerund and the infinitive -- can act as nouns, these also can form the nucleus of a noun phrase:

Ice fishing is a popular winter pass-time.

However, since verbals are formed from verbs, they can also take direct objects and can be modified by adverbs.
A gerund phrase or infinitive phrase, then, is a noun phrase consisting of a verbal, its modifiers (both adjectives and adverbs), and its objects: